Mystery Inscription on Controversial Sword

[CharlesS]

Jim,

Thanks for the input. I was just trying to get some sense of whether to go with "jiboula" or "sboula" in a catalog I am working on. If Buttin is calling it "sboula" I will go with that.

I had that reference work, but it never crossed my mind to look there!

Thanks again.

[blue lander]

What about the Shula dagger/sword? Is this another spelling for sboula/jiboula or something else entirely? They look completely different but I believe they're from Morocco as well.

[werecow]

This may be a stretch, but I was browsing through the alphabet site a bit and it looks like the inscription has some features of Loma (Liberia):

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/lomasyllabary.htm

[Interested Party]

Originally Posted by werecow

This may be a stretch, but I was browsing through the alphabet site a bit and it looks like the inscription has some features of Loma (Liberia):

https://www.omniglot.com/writing/lomasyllabary.htm

Wow!!! So close! How did you stumble across this writing system? I tried to transliterate this inscription both as posted and inverted. Neither quite worked but it was close. That is a complicated syllabary.

It could just be pretty lines for spiritual power? A nonsense Latinesque inscription to add value? An older/newer version of Loma, or related language? The mystery continues...

[werecow]

Originally Posted by Interested Party

Wow!!! So close! How did you stumble across this writing system? I tried to transliterate this inscription both as posted and inverted. Neither quite worked but it was close. That is a complicated syllabary.

I'd like to claim some research superpowers but I literally just browsed through about a dozen or so of the African alphabets on the site.

[TVV]

Loma script on blades mounted in Morocco sounds fascinating, but unfortunately also totally improbable. The sboula that started the thread is probably from the end of the 19th century or early 20th century, predating the Loma script. Even if you somehow can get past that, why would anyone in Morocco inscribe a blade in some obscure Trans Saharan language and not Arabic?

I still feel that an illiterate smith/engraver putting something that visually imitates older European marks is the most plausible explanation. The vast majority of Sboulas (and Genouis) are from cut down European blades, and any local production apparently needed to at least look like the imports in order to be marketable.

[werecow]

Originally Posted by TVV

Loma script on blades mounted in Morocco sounds fascinating, but unfortunately also totally improbable. The sboula that started the thread is probably from the end of the 19th century or early 20th century, predating the Loma script. Even if you somehow can get past that, why would anyone in Morocco inscribe a blade in some obscure Trans Saharan language and not Arabic?

I still feel that an illiterate smith/engraver putting something that visually imitates older European marks is the most plausible explanation. The vast majority of Sboulas (and Genouis) are from cut down European blades, and any local production apparently needed to at least look like the imports in order to be marketable.

You're probably right that it isn't Loma, but I think we should be a little cautious before we assume that this is simply a meaningless imitation of European scripts. It's certainly a possibility.... but is it possible that Loma was derived from or inspired by an earlier form of writing from the general area that is a better match in symbols, time and space? It seems unlikely that it was just invented out of thin air. Unfortunately searching omniglot is not entirely trivial. Do we have any historical grammatologist around who specialized in 19th century North-West African scripts?